NATION

In America, we have a long history of valuing the concept of the separation of church and state. This idea historically referred to a division of labors between the church and the civil magistrate. However, initially both the church and the state were seen as entities ordained by God and subject to His governance. In that sense, the state was considered to be an entity that was “under God.” What has happened in the past few decades is the obfuscation of this original distinction between church and state, so that today the language we hear of separation of church and state, when carefully exegeted, communicates the idea of the separation of the state from God. In this sense, it’s not merely that the state declares independence from the church, it also declares independence from God and presumes itself to rule with autonomy.

R.C. Sproul

Statism, September 2008, Tabletalk, p. 7. Used by Permission.

America today is a save-yourself society if there ever was one. But does it really work? The underdeveloped societies suffer from one set of diseases: tuberculosis, malnutrition, pneumonia, parasites, typhoid, cholera, typhus, etc. Affluent America has virtually invented a whole new set of diseases: obesity, arteriosclerosis, heart disease, strokes, lung cancer, venereal disease, cirrhosis of the liver, drug addiction, alcoholism, divorce, battered children, suicide, murder. Take your choice. Laborsaving machines have turned out to be body-killing devices. Our affluence has allowed both mobility and isolation of the nuclear family, and as a result our divorce courts, our prisons and our mental institutions are flooded. In saving ourselves we have nearly lost ourselves.

Ralph Winter

Reconstruction to a Wartime, not a Peacetime, Lifestyle, Perspectives on the World Christian Movement, William Carey Library, 1981, p. 815.

America’s greatness has been the greatness of a free people who shared certain moral commitments. Freedom without moral commitment is aimless and promptly self-destructive.

John W. Gardner

You don’t have to go to heathen lands today to find false gods. America is full of them. Whatever you love more than God is your idol.

D.L. Moody

According to Edward Gibbon, in his classic work, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, there were five major causes for the decline and fall of the Roman empire.

1. The breakdown of the family and the increase of divorce.

2. The spiraling rise of taxes and extravagant spending.

3. The mounting desire for pleasure and the brutalization of sports.

4. The continual production of armaments to face ever increasing threats of enemy attacks.

5. The decay of religion into many confusing forms, leaving the people without a uniform faith. It is very significant that these factors exist today.

George Sweeting

Who Said That? Moody Press, 1995, p. 143.

It is a fact that unless children are brought up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, they, and the society which they constitute or control, will go to destruction. Consequently, when a state resolves that religious instruction shall be banished from the schools and other literary institutions, it virtually resolves on self-destruction.

Charles Hodge

Even when you include the amendments, the Constitution says only three things about religion. Here’s exactly what the Constitution says about the subject: Article VI: “No religious test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.” Amendment 1: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” In other words: 1. The government is not allowed to make people take a religious test in order to qualify for holding federal office; 2. Congress is not allowed to set up an official national church; and 3. Congress is not allowed to stop people from practicing their religions. These three rules are meant to protect your liberty to follow God, not to abolish it. That famous slogan about a “wall of separation” just isn’t there.

J. Budziszewski

But we would do well to think of ourselves in the same way we used to think about the lost people of the mission field. We have become the new heathen. We Americans are the ones now in thrall to primitive superstitions, such as believing in the power of positive thinking and having faith in ourselves. We are the ones held back by a materialistic worldview that has little conception of the supernatural. We are the ones with brutal customs, such as aborting our infants, neglecting our children, and abandoning and sometimes euthanizing our elders. We have simple, pounding music, and we are uneducated about the realities outside of our tribe. With our limited mind-set, we have trouble grasping the truths of Scripture.

Gene Edward Veith

Spontaneous Compassion, Tabletalk, November, 2008, p. 82. Used by Permission.

As God can protect His people under the greatest despotism, so the utmost civil liberty is no safety to them without the immediate protection of His Almighty arm. I fear that Christians in this country have too great a confidence in political institutions…[rather] than of the government of God.

Alexander Carson

Confidence in God in Times of Danger, p. 41.

Despite its foundational Christian heritage, America is rapidly degenerating into a godless society. The church in America, although highly visible and active, appears powerless to redirect the rushing secular currents. Mired in a moral and spiritual crisis, America’s only hope is a national revival, like God has graciously bestowed in the past.

Erwin Lutzer

America’s Spiritual Crisis, Revival Commentary, v. 1, n. 2, p. 12.

We must repudiate our confused loyalties and concerns for the passing world and put aside our misguided efforts to change culture externally. To allow our thoughts, plans, time, money, and energy to be spent trying to make a superficially Christian America, or to put a veneer of morality over the world, is to distort the gospel, misconstrue our divine calling, and squander our God-given resources. We must not weaken our spiritual mission, obscure our priority of proclaiming the gospel of salvation, or become confused about our spiritual citizenship, loyalties and obligations. We are to change society, but by faithfully proclaiming the gospel, which changes lives on the inside.

John MacArthur

Titus, Moody, 1996, p. 138.

The real democratic American idea is, not that every man shall be on a level with every other man, but that every man shall have liberty to be what God made him, without hindrance.

Henry Ward Beecher

God often blesses nations because of the obedience of the elect. The elect of God is the remnant of faithful believers who occupy and advance the kingdom of God in their land. (Had there been but ten in the days of Abraham, Sodom would have been spared.) Because of this, it is the failure of the remnant, even more than the evil of the heathen majority, which determines the future of a nation. The remnant must be faithful to God’s standards.

Douglas W. Phillips

Why the Life of the Mother is Not a Valid Exception for Abortion, December 16, 2002, www.visionforumministries.org, Used by Permission.